today we started making a list of everything we own trying to decide what we take with us on the plane, what is shipped to nz in the container, what we put in storage and we we sell / give away / throw away. since we don’t know when we’ll be back to boston our plan is to put the things that we want to keep but not ship to nz (childhood rocking horse, formal dining room furniture, etc.) in storage in saint louis. then if we later realized we really needed something left behind we could pick up during on of our visits or ask someone to ship it to us.
with a gigantic mcmansion, a 1700 sq ft basement and a cabin in vermont it should have been no surprise that we have accumulated quite a mountain of stuff.
our original plan was to take just our favourite things and buy whatever else we needed in nz once we knew where we were living. but the strong consensus on the nz immigration forum is to bring everything you can that’s not junk. the cost of replacing things is just to high. even though their electrical system is different (220 volts @ 50 hertz vs. 110 volts @ 60 hertz in the states) everyone was saying to buy a transformer to allow it to work in nz and bring it and the transformer with you.
the other (actually greater) challenge is what to do with all the “just fine” stuff that i don’t want to throw out but don’t want to bring with us and is not worth trying to ebay or craigslist. examples: 6 garden hoses, a big box of fatwood fire starter, a 3 year old printer,… we’ll try and garage sell as much as possible but i don’t know what i’ll do with what remains. normally this is the stuff you just throw in the moving truck and put back in the basement of you new place. i hate it but i see a garbage dumpster in my future.